https://kerwinliao.github.io/academic/ Recent content in Kerwin Xiang Liao on Kerwin Liao's Home Page https://kerwinliao.github.io/images/papermod-cover.png https://kerwinliao.github.io/images/papermod-cover.png Hugo -- 0.146.0 en PaperMod Contributors Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://kerwinliao.github.io/academic/conformity-and-creativity/ Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://kerwinliao.github.io/academic/conformity-and-creativity/ Formal education claims to cultivate human potential, yet its structure tends to reward conformity over creativity. This paper proposes a normative theory of cognitive pluralism that reimagines education as an ecosystem of developmental cultivation rather than a mechanism of selection, with creativity tempered by wisdom. https://kerwinliao.github.io/academic/tournament-logic/ Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://kerwinliao.github.io/academic/tournament-logic/ A critical reappraisal of tournament theory, the model in organizational economics that treats promotion and pay as rank-order contests. Drawing on Elizabeth Anderson’s relational egalitarianism, the paper argues that tournaments are not only incentive devices but institutional and ideological arrangements that entrench workplace domination and moralize failure.